Yesterday a job opened up that I could apply for. A few years ago, I took a position for a department that was utter chaos, had no way to tell if it was successful except quarterly, and couldn’t determine if an individual member of the department was doing his or her job. I changed all of that, starting with the last, so that everything was built up on the basis of the individual members production, which meant that the department achievement had a direct relation to each person’s actions, and everything was objective and reproducible and actual trends could be viewed over time. The new job was like the starting point of this one, but with dollar values an order of magnitude larger.

I noted the opportunity to Shannon, to ask her opinion on whether I should apply and what I should ask for compensation. I ran down everything, noting that, in addition to the three years of unpleasantness and stress I’d had, I’d be travelling monthly as well. I was, at that moment, considering that I’d need at least another 25% to consider the position, and really was thinking of not trying for it; it sounded like a chance to go back to being stressed and unhappy all the time. I tossed the 25% number at Shannon.

“So, that’s about X dollars monthly, net. About double the monthly deficit in our bills. So we’d break even and pay back savings a little each month.

“… which means that, since I can get this position, it’s really my duty to get it. We need the money, so my duty is clear; I need to trade off for more stress and less sleep and time and life, and get the money that we need.”

Again, a moment earlier I had been thinking I wouldn’t even apply. Suddenly it wasn’t even an option to not apply, and I was getting angry with my life because all I was for on this planet was to facilitate bill paying and other people’s needs. My pulse was so fast and so hard that I could hear it, even over the rising tension and volume in my own voice.

It was my duty to go back through an awful period of time. It was my duty to give up being happy for money, it wasn’t even a rate of exchange sort of decision, my happiness wasn’t on the table when there was Duty to perform, my happiness was, in fact, a trivial concern because it was only MY happiness, not IMPORTANT –

I stopped talking before any of that mind-spin could escape into words. ”Wow.” I told Shannon about the internal rant, and where it was going, and we came to quick agreement; I should not apply for the position.

I’d never actually SEEN my internal stability kicked off it’s mounts before. I could even identify the first wobble: ”Duty”. That word pops up and I become self-destructively stupid.

Bizarre. Weird to see it happen. It took me about ten minutes to get back to normal.

I’ve no idea what we’ll do for money, but I guess that, for now, we won’t be sacrificing me on an altar to Finance.